The North Florida women’s basketball team (6-15 overall, 2-4 A-Sun) lost big at home against conference rival Florida Gulf Coast (18-4 overall, 6-0 A-Sun) by a score of 65-38 on Jan. 30.

FGCU’s defense shut down the Ospreys in the entire first half. The Eagles only allowed 9 points in the first quarter and an underwhelming 5 points in the second quarter.

With the team missing the help of starting guard/forward Taru Madekivi for undisclosed medical reasons, even more of the scoring burden was put on the guards than usual. The problem for North Florida was that the team seemed to have an off day.

Sophomore guard Sierra Shepherd only scored 6 pts which put a large dent in UNF’s game plan. North Florida head coach Darrick Gibbs diagnosed her struggle.

“Honestly she wasn’t aggressive enough,” Gibbs said. “As a team we need her to be. She got into her own head a little bit and they [FGCU] were able to do what their plan was, which was to take her out of the game.”

The Ospreys only shot 28 percent from the field as a team, but there were some bright spots in the team’s performance. The only players who seemed to be playing at their usual production levels were senior guard Kadesia Johnson, who fell one rebound short of a double-double, and junior guard Claire Ioannidis who scored 14 pts.

“We just didn’t execute the way that we know we can,” Ioannidis said. “I mean, yeah their defense was good, but our offense just didn’t play like we can.”

The second half was more competitive. The Ospreys managed to score 24 points which was almost twice as much as their first half total, but they ended up losing the game 65-38.

The Ospreys look to bounce back when they play their next game at Stetson (12-8 overall, 3-3 A-Sun) on Feb. 4 in DeLand, Florida.

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